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Diplomats dim hopes for world's largest summit

International rivalries and hard negotiations will likely keep tough issues off the U.N. agenda.

UNITED NATIONS - More than 160 presidents, prime ministers, kings and their entourages are descending upon New York for a three-day summit beginning today that will be the largest gathering of world leaders in history.

But instead of the detailed prescription for U.N. reform that Secretary-General Kofi Annan hoped for, diplomats say their leaders will probably adopt a watered-down document whose most ambitious ideas have either been abandoned or left for later.

A definition of terrorism and details on how to replace the discredited U.N. Commission on Human Rights will not be included. U.S.-led efforts to overhaul U.N. management have been diluted, while nuclear nonproliferation likely won't be mentioned at all.

Annan had gambled that by calling world leaders together for the summit, he could push through a list of sweeping U.N. reforms and refocus attention on the Millennium Development Goals, a set of targets for reducing poverty and disease by 2015.

But longtime national rivalries and tough negotiating tactics slowed the process. The United States weighed in with hundreds of proposed changes a few weeks ago, for which it was strongly criticized, though other nations including Russia, Pakistan and China vehemently opposed some elements.

Negotiators circulated a new 35-page document they hoped would break the deadlock on several of the most contentious issues. But it must win agreement of all 191 U.N. member states.

Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, came close to scolding states working on the document when he was asked how worried Annan was about the text. "You know, the clock continues to tick," Dujarric said. "The negotiators, I think, have left things perilously late in light of the date of the summit, which was announced well in advance."

Diplomats said they would almost certainly come up with something for their leaders to adopt; that could provide impetus for later, more detailed talks on reforming the United Nations, they said.

U.N. officials and diplomats instead characterized the results of the summit as one step, not the definitive blueprint on U.N. reform that Annan had initially sought.

"It would be wrong to claim more than is realistic and accurate about what these reforms are," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. "They represent steps forward, but this is not the alpha and the omega, and we never thought it would be."

The U.N. Security Council is also holding a rare meeting today chaired by its nations' leaders to consider resolutions on terrorism and conflict and Africa.

[Last modified September 14, 2005, 02:15:34]